P.M. ‘Bigs Up’ Leslie for Effort

Dean Barrow

Leslie was personally endorsed by both former Mayor Darrell Bradley and many of the upper echelons of his party. His victory at the ITVET grounds seven months ago over Philip Willoughby seemed pre-ordained. But it makes Wednesday’s loss sting all the more, and so Prime Minister Dean Barrow singled out Leslie among the losing candidates for special commendation for his hard work to win Belize City, in what turned out to be a close but losing effort.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“I want to pay special tribute to those of our candidates, not just mayor candidates, all candidates who did not in fact win, but who worked so ferociously hard.  I look directly at Dion Leslie.  I know personally of the kind of copious quantities of shoe leather that he had to in fact give up in walking as relentlessly as he did with respect to the Belize City house-to-house campaign, and to a greater or lesser degree that was true of all our candidates countrywide.”